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The Prehistory Club!

Welcome to the club! This is for lovers of all things prehistoric! From the Precambrian to the Quaternary, we've gotcha covered! Rules:

1. This is a thread for discussing things pertaining to prehistoric life (i.e. Jurassic Park and how it conflicts with REAL dinosaurs) and, of course, the Fossil Pokemon. (Pokemon like Meganium and Rhyhorn are OK too, 'cause they're at least partially based on dinos.) Jokes and stories are OK too. If you're not entirely sure about something, PM me first.

2. No swearing. Words up to C are OK, though.

3. Absolutely no spam.

4.If you go against the rules, you get a temporary ban. However, like in baseball, it's three strikes and you're out.

5. Have fun!

6. Always try to italicize the scientific names of animals (i.e. Tyrannosaurus rex or Kelenken). However, this rule won't be enforced as much.

----------------Members:Owner: ga'hoolefanMembers: Taposa, littlea53, Gelatino95, hypno12, Chibi Muffin, Midgeorge, Toobworm, scraftyscrafty, CaptainGarchomp
----------------
Topics for Discussion:
How do you think the JP movies could have been improved?
If Walking with Dinosaurs was to be remade, what new things/environments would be included?
What new Fossil Poke's have you made up/think will be made up?
What's your favorite dinosaur?

Join Form:
[insert name here]
Favorite Prehistoric Animal:

Image Credit: Jurassic Park wiki

Last edited by ga'hoolefan; 2nd January 2012 at 7:41 PM.
Reason: New Member(s)

How funny that you should discuss a ground sloth as a possible fossil pokemon, since they're my favorite kind. The only problem is that it'll be hard for many pokemon players to visualize a mammal as being prehistoric because it resembles modern-day animals like bears and anteaters relatively closely (an exception would be Carracosta, which resembles modern turtles in many ways). If it were up to me to create fossil pokemon, I wouldn't make them dinosaurs. Naturally, I'd want to represent as wide a variety of extinct species as possible, and dinosaurs only represent a small portion of the number of extinct species. Fourth gen already introduced two dinosaurs, and Archeops, assuming it's supposed to be an Archeopteryx, is another dinosaur-like pokemon. I'd expect some kind of dinosaur different than the ones introduced thus far. I have to admit, though, I have to give Game Freak's design department credit for using a Pachycephalosaurus as the first introduced theropod rather than another well-known theropod, like a T. rex, Velociraptor, or even a Baronyx.

@Gelatino95: Welcome, and just FYI, Pachycephalosaurus is a marginocephalian, a branch of the ornithischian plant-eating dinosaurs. Also, Archaeopteryx is now considered a non-avian deinonychosaur. (raptor), so Archen/Archeops are really the first introduced theropods to Pokemon (besides bird Pokemon, since birds are now considered living theropods).
@Hypno12: Welcome! I've honestly never even heard of Platyoposaurus.
I've added both of your names to the "Members" list. Also,I though of a good fossil poke: one based on the terror birds, especially Kelenken. Terror birds are probably one of my favorite ancient birds. I also added a new rule.

Name: Chibi_Muffin
Favourite Prehistoric Animal: Diplodocus, definitely! Though many dinosaurs interest me. In recent years, I've also gained a slight fondness for the Carboniferous insects as well, especially Arthropleura and Meganeura. I'm just a prehistoric animal geek, really. I've loved dinosaurs since I was a little girl. ^_^

Welcome to the club! I've also been a paleo-geek since I was young. My favorite time and place would probably be Hell Creek, Late Cretaceous. I'v loved its dinos since I was about three! However, now I've branched out a little more. I love the Yixian and Majunga formations in China and Madagascar, respectively. The best time after the non-avian dinos, however, was probably around the Miocene in Patagonia, when Phorusrhacos and Kelenken, the terror birds, ruled the land. Oh yes, I almost forgot. What is you people's opinion of the icthyosaur Shastasaurus? I think it's pretty awesome.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. What is you people's opinion of the icthyosaur Shastasaurus? I think it's pretty awesome.

From what I can tell, it's unique among icthyosaurs. Besides being the biggest of them all, also the largest marine reptile to date, it has a unique snout that lets it eat cephalopods rather than hunting with the long, toothed jaws that other icthyosaurs possessed. Clearly not the most fearsome hunter of the deep, but I quite like it. It would have made a much better water/rock fossil pokemon than Carracosta, in my opinion.

The time is 8:00 AM, 215 million years ago in the Late Triassic period, and the place is what will become modern-day California. At this time, the earliest dinosaurs, such as the small carnivores Eoraptor of South America and Coelophysis of North America, have appeared, as they evolved only about five million years earlier. However, this story will take you in a much different direction and follow a much different species. Prepare for the undersea journey of a lifetime!

Our story begins in an ordinary-looking open ocean. There are no coastlines in sight. The shiny bluish water surface breaks as a short, grayish snout emerges and exhales. Then, it inhales and dives under again. Several more snouts poke out and do the same.

Underwater, it is a very strange scene. About sixteen immense ancient beasts are swim-ming peacefully through the open ocean. They are Shastasaurus. Although shastasaurs aren’t dinosaurs, these gargantuan reptiles are one of the largest sea animals ever to live. At seventy feet long and seventy-five tons, they approach modern-day whales in size.

However, Shastasaurus looks more like a dolphin than a whale. It has the same long, streamlined body shape and short beak, or snout. Despite these similarities, Shastasaurus is very different from dolphins or whales. For instance, while dolphins have a large dorsal fin on their backs, Shastasaurus lacks that adaptation. Modern whales and dolphins have only one pair of flippers, but ichthyosaurs like Shastasaurus have an extra pair where legs would be on terrestrial animals. Their tail fins closely resemble those on a fish because of a fleshy projection sticking up from what would otherwise be a straight tail. Shastasaurs, surprisingly, have no teeth whatsoever. They are adapted for sucking up their prey, which are often small fish and cephalopods such as squids.

The pod, as a group of Shastasaurus is called, swims through the ancient Triassic ocean on a journey. They are migrating to coastal waters all the way across the ocean, in what will be-come China, so they can breed and find plentiful swarms of prey items. However, their journey is soon going to be interrupted.

The pod is slowly being ambushed by a deadly pack of Cymbospondylus. These danger-ous predators resemble Shastasaurus, and are in the same group of animals called ichthyosaurs, but they are a lot smaller, at only thirty feet and five tons, giving them the advantage of speed. Their snout is also a lot longer. Normally, Cymbospondylus wouldn’t come this far out to the open sea, but food has been scarce in coastal waters due to an outbreak in the shark population and the open sea seemed like the safest choice for food. All of a sudden, as if out of nowhere, the Cymbospondylus pack speedily appears out of the murky gloom that is the open ocean. One pod member, a sickly old straggler that is lagging behind, is selected for the attack because it would make a better target than a fully-grown, healthy Shastasaurus. The vicious Cymbospondylus attack by swimming in and tearing off large chunks of flesh from their prey. Sooner than later, the Shastasaurus is dead and the voracious icthyosaurian predators enjoy their hard-earned prize of meat. As they eat, small bits of their meal sink towards the distant sea bottom. On their way there, the chunks of meat are voraciously eaten by the opportunistic prehistoric shark Hybodus. These sharks are about six feet long and are characterized by a small spine on their dorsal fins.

The pod, now missing one member, swims on through the open sea towards the breeding grounds. One immense Shastasaurus passes a school of ancient fish and sucks some up. Another consumes some squids. It is then time for another breath, and all the pod members rise to the sur-face. Their short grayish snouts poke above the water, exhale, inhale, and dive under again. The shastasaurs then continue their long undersea migration, hoping that predators will no longer bother them.

That was a fine story. There were a few hyphens where they weren't necessary, but other than that, no grammatical errors that I spotted on my first read. I liked how you described the latter species (the Cymbospondylus) since I had never heard of them, but I was able to visualize them clearly. My only piece of criticism is that you could try spreading out your description on the Shatasaurus so that it's integrated into the story rather than clumping it together into one big paragraph that looks like it was copy and pasted from Wikipedia (exaggeration). Instead of outright telling us all the information on the Shatasaurus, reveal it indirectly through actions that the creatures take during their migration.

The story had an overall nice feel and reminded me of how the many animals in the world are able to move on with their lives despite the callous treatment that nature gives it.

Thanks! I just wrote this for a school assignment, and I made Word automatically put hyphens in. Guess I shouldn't have done that! Anyway, about the paragraph thing, I'll try to work on it. Has anyone else here heard of the hypothesis that Protoceratops may have inspired some griffin myths?

Has anyone else here heard of the hypothesis that Protoceratops may have inspired some griffin myths?

From what I can tell from Wikipedia, Scythian nomads found these fossils around their gold mines, creating the myth that these creatures guarded the gold deposits in the area. When Scythian nomads made contact with Greece, the Greeks started describing the Griffin as a lion-like creature with a beak and talons based on the descriptions of the Scythians.

I think it's totally plausible. Protoceratops were around the size of sheep, so it's understandable why the Scythians would mistake them for immature lion bones. Obviously the beak plays a big part in the design, making it half bird, half lion. I think it's also possible they could have mistaken the neck frill for a mane, which is why lions are involved.

Wow, that story was certainly interesting! I'd never heard of Shastasaurus before, and it served as a nice introduction.

That said, it's amazing how dolphinlike icthyosaurs are, isn't it? They even gave birth. It's surprising that despite being millions of years before them and being from a totally different order, that those animals could be so similar to modern ones.

As for the Protoceratops thing, that seems plausible. In the past, people did mistake fossils for all sorts of other weird things, didn't they? Interesting to know that one of the most famous myths may have originated from something as mysterious as a dinosaur (albeit one we know a lot about today).

ga'hoole, I'm interested to know that you know about terror birds. I'm not greatly informed about them, since I got most of my knowledge of prehistoric animals from documentaries and books, though I have heard of Phorusrhacos before. I'd preferably like to see those mediums cover a bit more about non-Mezosoic (sp?) creatures, like them.